NewArchive / 17 - Name the main periods when English experienced the influx of borrowings

17 - Name the main periods when English experienced the influx of borrowings.

Chronological periods of English:

- Old English 5-11 c AD (Anglo-Saxon)

- Middle English 1066 (The Norman conquest)* - 15 c AD

- The New English (1475) - Modern English

6 c. – Latin, Greek bor.-s. These borrowings are usually called classical borrowings.

Among words of Romanic origin borrowed from Latin during the period when the British Isles were a part of the Roman Empire, there are such words as: street, port, wall etc. Many Latin and Greek words came into English during the Adoption of Christianity in the 6-th century. At this time the Latin alphabet was borrowed which ousted the Runic alphabet. These borrowings are usually called classical borrowings. Here belong Latin words: alter, cross, dean, and Greek words: church, angel, devil, anthem.

Latin and Greek borrowings appeared in English during the Middle English period due to the Great Revival of Learning. These are mostly scientific words because Latin was the language of science at the time. These words were not used as frequently as the words of the Old English period, therefore some of them were partly assimilated grammatically, e.g. formula - formulae. Here also belong such words as: memorandum, minimum, maximum, veto etc.

Classical borrowings continue to appear in Modern English as well. Mostly they are words formed with the help of Latin and Greek morphemes. There are quite a lot of them in medicine (appendicitis, aspirin), in chemistry (acid, valency, alkali), in technique (engine, antenna, biplane, airdrome), in politics (socialism, militarism), names of sciences (zoology, physics) . In philology most of terms are of Greek origin (homonym, archaism, lexicography).

Middle Ages – Latin bor.-s. (mostly scientific words )

10 c. – Scandinavian b-s. By the end of the Old English period English underwent a strong influence of Scandinavian due to the Scandinavian conquest of the British Isles. Scandinavians belonged to the same group of peoples as Englishmen and their languages had much in common. As the result of this conquest there are about 700 borrowings from Scandinavian into English.Scandinavians and Englishmen had the same way of life,their cultural level was the same, they had much in common in their literature therefore there were many words in these languages which were almost identical, e.g. However there were also many words in the two languages which were different, and some of them were borrowed into English , such nouns as: bull, cake, egg, kid, knife, skirt, window etc, such adjectives as: flat, ill, happy, low, odd, ugly, wrong, such verbs as : call, die, guess, get, give, scream and many others.

Scandinavian Phrasal verbs are now highly productive in English /take off, give in etc/.

11 c. – French b-s. (Norman conquest)

Most of them came into English during the Norman conquest. French influenced not only the vocabulary of English but also its spelling,. Runic letters remaining in English after the Latin alphabet was borrowed were substituted by Latin letters and combinations of letters, e.g. «v» was introduced for the voiced consonant /v/ instead of «f» in the intervocal position /lufian - love/, the digraph «ch» was introduced to denote the sound /ch/ instead of the letter «c» / chest/ before front vowels where it had been palatalized

There are the following semantic groups of French borrowings:

a) words relating to government : government;

b) words relating to military affairs: army, war, , battle;

c) words relating to jury: advocate, , barrister;

d) words relating to fashion: luxury, coat, collar, lace, pleat, embroidery;

e) words relating to jewelry: topaz, emerald, ruby, pearl ;f) words relating to food and cooking: lunch, dinner, appetite, to roast, to stew.

after 1650 - French b-s. (partially assimilated. Through literature) through French literature, but they were not as numerous and many of them are not completely assimilated: belle-lettres, conservatorie, brochure, nuance, piruette, vaudeville; corps, echelon, fuselage, manouvre; entresol, chateau, bureau; ragout, cuisine.

17 c. – Italian b-s. (some geological terms) Cultural and trade relations between Italy and England brought many Italian words into English. The earliest Italian borrowing came into English in the 14-th century, it was the word «bank» /from the Italian «banco» - «bench»/. In the 17-th century some geological terms were borrowed : volcano, granite, bronze, lava. At the same time some political terms were borrowed: manifesto, bulletin. But mostly Italian is famous by its influence in music and in all Indo-European languages musical terms were borrowed from Italian : alto, baritone, basso, tenor, falsetto, solo, duet, trio, quartet, quintet, opera, operette, libretto, piano, violin. Among the 20-th century Italian borrowings we can mention : gazette, incognitto, autostrada, fiasco, fascist, diletante, grotesque, graffitto etc.

20 c. – German, Russian, Italian b-s.

There are some 800 words borrowed from German into English. Some of them have classical roots, e.g. in some geological terms, such as: cobalt, bismuth, zink, quarts, gneiss, wolfram. There were also words denoting objects used in everyday life which were borrowed from German: iceberg, lobby, rucksack, Kindergarten etc.

In the period of the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Volkssturm, Luftwaffe, SS-man, Bundeswehr, gestapo, gas chamber and many others. After the Second World War the following words were borrowed: Berufsverbot, Volkswagen etc.

Russian borrowings

Among early Russian borrowings there are mainly words connected with trade relations, such as: rouble, copeck, pood, sterlet, vodka, sable, and also words relating to nature, such as: taiga, tundra, steppe etc.

through Rushian literature of the 19-th century, such as : Narodnik, moujik, duma, zemstvo. volost, ukase etc, and also words which were formed in Russian with Latin roots, such as: nihilist, intelligenzia, Decembrist etc.After the Great October Revolution many new words appeared in

Spanish borrowings came into English mainly through its American variant. There are the following semantic groups of them:

a) trade terms: cargo, embargo;

b) names of dances and musical instruments: tango, rumba, habanera, guitar;

c) names of vegetables and fruit: tomato, potato, tobbaco, cocoa, banana, ananas, apricot etc.